It is my great pleasure to have been part of the gaming industry since 1972 when I first discovered it. In 1977 I sold my first article, in 1978 I sold my first game design and in 1979 began working for Flying Buffalo, Inc.. In 1985 I was able to go freelance and since that time I have made my living through creative arts including game design and game based fiction. My work has been honored with Origins awards, and in 1993 I received the GAMA Meritorious Service award, and was a first ballot inductee into the Academy of Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame. I have worked long enough in this industry to have survived many of the companies for whom I worked, and have continued to enjoy fruitful associations with what companies remain.

A long time ago, to honor the industry which gave me my start, I made a personal pledge to serve it however I could. I have been a long time volunteer. I have been an advocate for gaming in perilous times. With Loren Wiseman’s help, in the late 1980s and early 1990s I successfully led the fight against the religious right and their attempts to censor and abolish the games we create, enjoy and share. I still take pride in gamers reporting to me that The Pulling Report enabled them to fight back against anti-game bigotry even to this day. Though the work is difficult, I have been pleased to continue the fight as part of the Industry Watch Committee of GAMA.

The greatest privilege I have had is to serve on the Board of Directors, initially for three years as an elected member, and the last eleven as an Emeritus member. I feel the Emeritus role on the board is a crucial one, since board turnover requires a repository of knowledge so we can avoid the pitfalls of past mistakes, and maintain the benefits of what we have learned in past times.

I regret that I must now tender my resignation from that post.

I have not reached this decision based on any political divide within the Board. I have come to it because the Board is broken. Since June, the board has had more meetings than ever before, and has done less than ever before. In one recent meeting, it took the board 45 minutes to word a resolution empowering a committee to hire a lawyer to negotiate with another lawyer. Three-quarters of an hour, in a meeting scheduled for two hours, which stretched to four.

The board is broken when the organization’s membership indicates its will; and then the board commissions a poll to second guess the membership’s will. When that poll comes back confirming what the membership wants, the board hires a lawyer to tell them they can ignore the membership.

The board is broken when, in wishing to discuss me in email, without my being aware of the chain, they actually send it to a list which includes me. (Thought I’d let you know about that so you didn’t think your emails were leaked to me.)

This is not a decision reached easily, and one that comes with profound sadness. During my time in the industry, I have seen incredible change for the better, and an incredible resilience to recover from all manner of disasters—economic, social and board-generated. I have great belief that the gaming industry will survive and thrive in the future. It is bigger than any one person, or a board. It can be defined only by the pleasure and joy it brings everyone it touches, and, therefore, will be eternal.

My resignation is effective 3 PM, 5 January 2019

Michael A. Stackpole

The Game Manufacturers Association has been down a very rocky road this past year:

May 2018: GAMA runs Origins Game Fair.Shortly after publicizing that Larry Correia had been added as a guest of honor, John Ward, GAMA Executive Director, received so many negative social media comments (on Twitter, particularly) that he announced Correia’s invitation had been rescinded (“Origins Game Fair Drops Larry Correia as Guest”).

The board is broken when the organization’s membership indicates its will; and then the board commissions a poll to second guess the membership’s will. When that poll comes back confirming what the membership wants, the board hires a lawyer to tell them they can ignore the membership.

That is seriously fucked-up. It sounds as though a Board housecleaning is overdue. 🙁

@JJ
Corporate boards do something similar: the shareholders vote for something the board doesn’t like (or want), and suddenly shareholder votes are just “advisory”. (In a few cases, the boards have changed the rules so that ordinary shares don’t have the same weight in votes as the shares that executives and BoD members have.)

This is what happens when identity politics infects an apolitical organization.

Monster Hunter International is coming out as a Savage Worlds variant, Larry is an active gamer, and he is a well known author. Controversy ensued when the snowflakes were upset about Larry’s invitation on things utterly unrelated to gaming.

If that BS had not happened, then you would have had a con harassment case which needed to be addressed and an incident with a board member at Gencon that they apologized for publicly within 24 hours.

avery abernethy: And here I thought what happened is that a GAMA member that Correia has verbally abused in one of his “fisks” got her acquaintances to agree that was not the kind of guest they wanted to honor, and registered their complaints with the Executive Director.

Stackpole has been one of the stalwart old guards of gaming and if he’s leaving because he can’t take the crap going on, it is a bad sign. And he’s worked for some really poorly managed companies in the past.

LC is an Author and a Gamer, yes, but he is also has had a long history of being one of the internet’s great a-holes with no concept of “optics” or “branding”. The Puppies brand has poisoned everyone who participated in it and will continue to do so for time to come. LC dedicates countless screeds on his blog to insult anyone he doesn’t like and regurgitate the same toxicity.

And some of the folks he was attacking in his screeds were gamers themselves and was sending the message that multiple entire demographics of gamers were unimportant and shouldn’t be listened to and are scum. Combine that with how he responds even to someone saying he has a thin skin(google that) and you have a person who is not the kind of person you want to be associated with your tradeshow or organization.

I think this is an important point that GAMA and Origins is not a Fan Convention, it’s a trade show. It is for professional game designers. LC has clearly demonstrated that he cannot behave in a professional manner and projects a net presence that is decidedly unprofessional and unhelpful to the gaming community at large.

If Larry Correia had toned down the vicious rhetoric and concentrated on writing, gaming and enjoying his mountain in Utah (which he actually seemed to do for a while), fandom might eventually have forgiven him for the puppy mess, especially since he was eventually eclipsed by bigger jerks down the line.

Alas, he’s keeping it up and is now reaping the rewards. Besides, he has a solid fanbase and should still do well, even if many beyond that fanbase want nothing to do with him.

avery abernethy: If that BS had not happened, then you would have had a con harassment case which needed to be addressed and an incident with a board member at Gencon that they apologized for publicly within 24 hours.

So what you are saying is that the GAMA Board Members are butthurt about things not going their way, and are therefore refusing to do their jobs properly.

Those Board members are incompetent (as well as being childish tantrum-throwers), and they should be fired.

Larry continues to sell well and is a big draw at Cons. He has participated in Cons on the writing and gaming side for a very long time with no complaints.

Identity Politics and idiot snowflakes pitched a fit on a nongaming issue and led to the “disinvitation” of Larry. Many people were angered by this including GAMA members.

The MHI Savage Worlds kickstarter raised a bunch of money ($122k). The kickstarter for the Savage Worlds core adventurers manual raised more than half a million dollars. Larry’s work certainly is supported by paying customers in the gaming world and Savage Worlds is a big RPG seller.

I would like the politics to stay out of gaming. Politics and idiot snowflakes have already ruined many SF cons. Some Cons seem to thrive on immersing themselves in whatever manufactured snowflake controversy arises.

The Hugo Awards are precious to many of you. Few of you share Larry’s politics. Many of you seem to wish that Larry’s and other participants among the Sads have horrible career consequences.

But Larry, John Ringo, and Brad’s incomes do not seem to have been negatively impacted. Scalzi’s income also does not seem to be harmed by his consistently leftist political writing on his blog. I’m sure that both Larry and Scalzi have lost some sales due to their outspoken political beliefs – but they both seem to be doing OK financially. I’ve stopped buying Scalzi’s work due to his annoying, outspoken leftist politics. I’m sure others stopped buying Larry’s work due to his annoying, outspoken libertarian politics.

@JJ – The harassment complaint at Origins was legit. I’ve asked repeatedly on gaming sites what happened and what if any punishment was meted out. I never got a clear response. I’ll speak to more GAMA members at Origins in June in addition to the people I regularly communicate with about what, if anything, was done.

GAMA has a lot of trade association issues and work. John Ward’s work on trade association issues was largely supported. He got a lot of criticism from actual GAMA members (not snowflakes posting on Facebook) about inviting/disinviting Larry. That episode was badly handled. Larry’s not shy about sharing his point of view and even minimum due diligence would have been sufficient before the invite was sent out.

avery abernethy, I’m going to address the fallacies in these statements:

“Larry continues to sell well and is a big draw at Cons.”
Fine, this is quite likely true, but how does it mitigate all of his incredibly bad behavior? You believe that as long as someone can find customers for their work, it excuses any bad behavior?

“He has participated in Cons on the writing and gaming side for a very long time with no complaints.”
You know this how? How many conventions do you serve as con chair or exec board: which ones, and for how many years?

“Identity Politics and idiot snowflakes pitched a fit on a nongaming issue and led to the “disinvitation” of Larry. Many people were angered by this including GAMA members.”
Correia’s extremely bad behavior toward many people who are members of the gaming community, over a very long period of time, is not a “nongaming issue”, no matter how you would like to pretend that it is. Many people have been angered by his bad behavior, including GAMA members.

“The MHI Savage Worlds kickstarter raised a bunch of money ($122k). The kickstarter for the Savage Worlds core adventurers manual raised more than half a million dollars. Larry’s work certainly is supported by paying customers in the gaming world and Savage Worlds is a big RPG seller.”
Again, how does this mitigate all of his incredibly bad behavior?

“I would like the politics to stay out of gaming. Politics and idiot snowflakes have already ruined many SF cons.”
Presumably you consider holding guests and fans to a higher standard of behavior to be “ruining” a con. A lot of fans disagree, and feel that doing so makes conventions much more enjoyable places to be.

“Many of you seem to wish that Larry’s and other participants among the Sads have horrible career consequences.”
Most of the sentiments I’ve seen expressed are that people wish the Puppies would stop behaving like horrible people. I’ve seen very little of what you say expressed; of course, if Puppy careers have suffered, that’s just reaping what they’ve sown, and that’s their problem to deal with.

“That episode was badly handled. Larry’s not shy about sharing his point of view and even minimum due diligence would have been sufficient before the invite was sent out.”
Oh, I absolutely agree. If they’d been doing due diligence like they should have, they would have been aware of any bad behavior by people they were considering inviting as guests, and chosen others. However, having done so, the onus was on them to correct their mistake, which they did.

JJ – what you consider to be “bad behavior” by Larry is your opinion. It is not shared in the gaming world. Larry is very popular in the gaming world and does a lot of charity and noncharity work in the area. He is a draw at Gencon every time he goes.

You demand “proof” that Larry is not a problem at game cons. JJ, I’ll spot you that your knowledge of WorldCon and the Hugos far exceeds mine. You seem to devote a lot of time to it.

I’m devoted to gaming. I’ve been going to game cons for 40 years. I write heavily in the area, go to a ton of cons, and have a ton of contacts. Your knowledge of game cons is a fraction of mine.

You seem to hold the opinion that if you disagree with someone about something you know little, you must have “proof” that they are right. If you are closed minded, I guess you have an awfully high standard of “evidence” for anything that challenges your world view.

You could always google my name and “airboy” in regards to gaming – or you could just trust that someone knows much more than you do on something you know little.

avery abernethy: what you consider to be “bad behavior” by Larry is your opinion. It is not shared in the gaming world. Larry is very popular in the gaming world and does a lot of charity and noncharity work in the area. He is a draw at Gencon every time he goes.

You don’t speak for “the gaming world”. You speak for yourself. You have no idea how many people at gaming conventions do, or don’t, have a problem with Correia’s behavior.

I’m not demanding proof that Correia hasn’t been a problem for any conventions. I’m pointing out that your pretend-authoritative statement that he hasn’t been a problem for other conventions is based purely on your opinion, and not on any insider knowledge in working at the highest level of all the gaming conventions in the country. But of course that point went WHOOSH!!! right over your head.

You’ve made it quite clear how highly you value your own expertise, but you’ve made enough mistakes about enough things here at File 770, that my unwillingness to share your high opinion of your expertise is more than understandable.

I don’t think anybody here wants Larry Correia’s or other people’s careers to tank. In fact, I quite explicitly said that Larry Correia still has a big fanbase. And personally, I’m happy for him that his books sell, that his Kickstarters do well and that he can support his family on his writing and buy mountains in Utah. I simply don’t ever want to read one of his books again, because they’re not to my taste and because Correia has and continues to behave like a jerk.

I suspect there are quite a few people in the SFF community who are closer politically to Larry Correia than they are to me or even John Scalzi (who is not an extreme leftwinger, but a centrist moderate). However, unlike Larry Correia, these folks don’t have a lengthy history of bad behaviour and attacking other fans and writers. That’s why many people want nothing to do with him, not because of his politics. And while I don’t know a whole lot about the gaming world, he seems to have done the same thing there, which is why many Origins attendants and GAMA members protested. If you behave like a jerk for an extended period of time, plenty of people want nothing to do with you. This goes for leftwingers as well as rightwingers. Just ask Benjanun Sriduangkaew or Sunil Patel how their careers are going these days.

I agree that GAMA should have done their due dilligence before inviting him, since it’s not exactly a secret what Larry Correia is like. Inviting and disinviting him made GAMA look bad, which shows that the board is apparently incompetent.

JJ – what you consider to be “bad behavior” by Larry is your opinion. It is not shared in the gaming world. Larry is very popular in the gaming world and does a lot of charity and noncharity work in the area. He is a draw at Gencon every time he goes.

Larry Correia attacks and belittle people who disagree with him and sics his fans on them. He’s done it to me and he’s done it to many others, e.g. Mike Glyer, Damien Walter, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Adam Roberts, etc… He also tends to punch down, i.e. he is relatively polite to people he considers important (GRRM, Scalzi) and attacks those he considers unimportant. That’s why so many people want nothing to do with him.

“JJ – what you consider to be “bad behavior” by Larry is your opinion. It is not shared in the gaming world. “

This is obviously untrue. If it had been true, there wouldn’t have been enormous amounts of complaints regarding him as a GoH, many of them from the dealers, and he wouldn’t have had his invitation rescinded.

Yeah, all I’m seeing is people saying Larry is a bad man who says bad things, who are unable to actually quote him on anything actually bad. And the actual reason he got disinvited is for defending another gaming convention when some dude tried to shit on it, and the guys’s fiance complained.

They published their Photo promotional pic of their Guests of Honor in May, months after he’d confirmed as a guest, and one woman lost her mind.

Her fiance, a billionaire from India, had written a “Not enough people in gaming are brown like me” article for Tor two years earlier. Larry did a fisking of the article, mocking the poor unfortunate billionaire when it came out. (How a billionaire is somehow the victim of a 1st generation American, son of a dairy farmer, urban fantasy writer is beyond me. Perhaps he’s not used to contrary opinions, being a billionaire and all.)

So his fiance lost her mind, and GAMA disinvited Larry over Facebook. His wife saw the disinvitation, called her husband, who checked his email, and saw yes, the disinvitation was there too.

*Then*, others in the gaming industry began chiming in that they didn’t like Larry either. I recall Green Ronin and Privateer Press in particular.

But don’t mistake what happened, one woman lost her mind publicly because Larry had teased her fiance two years earlier, and GAMA punted him based on that. If GAMA hadn’t locked down the entire thread, you’d be able to go back and see the timestamps when it all went down, but that would be embarassing for them because you’d see all of Larry’s fans publicly demanding refunds since his presence was why they were going to the Con in the first place.

Robert Peavyhouse: If you’re satisfied with Larry’s version, then why are you looking for an answer here? The reason I knew he was disinvited from Origins was because he wrote posts complaining about being disinvited. He was the source of my story.

Yeah, that’s a fued between him and glyer of long standing. I saw someone up thread say he has no understanding of “optics” … Optics is the art if trying to look good no matter what you are actually doing. He understands it. He just doesn’t care. He will speak what he believes no matter what. But … Back to his “bad behavior” at cons. Has he ever been accused of assault? Getting obnoxious drunk? Groping? Taking little boys to his room? Aside from people not liking his *opinions* I still have not been told one bad thing about his *behavior*.

If you don’t think that, say, having repeatedly insulted some of the people who are being asked to “honour” him as a guest might be a problem for a con, or how reacting to perceived grievences from a previous con by launching a multi-year campaign with the aim of wrecking their awards might make other cons fight shy of him, then you’re not going to listen to anything about how his behaviour had totally expected consequences.

Whether LC understands public perception and personal marketing is beyond me. Even if he just doesn’t care and is true to his word of just speaking online without filters because, “freedom of speech” it still has consequences.

If his goal is to retain fans, he is good at it because he keeps beating his drum and keeps his community engaged. He blogs regularly, he keeps coming out with new products(and reissues of old products) regularly and knows his target audience. I hate Larry as a person, but I will point to his early career as an example of how to start out. He is by all accounts a self-publishing success story, no doubt there. MHI was famously rejected by every publisher including Baen before he self-published to Gun Nut forums. And he did get nominated for a Campbell before any of this crap happened and that is admirable.

But lately, he has also been trying to expand his reach into other markets and to get more people to buy his books. If he doesn’t reach out to folks already not familiar with his books, he’ll never succeed. I know he wants that Cable TV Show or big budget Feature Film, but he won’t get those ever with his current behavior. As far as I know, MHI has been in development hell/been shopped around for years and gone nowhere. The way he comports himself online, especially how he lashed out any perceived negative criticism, would be looked at by any Film PR Department and would fail the risk assessment.

As to Bad Behavior physically at cons: Nothing has come out that has been that bad. But his behavior online and his behavior in public physically are the same thing and part of the same person. No one suddenly gets a free pass because they are nice in public but rude everywhere else. He might be the nicest guy in physical public, but social media and websites are now part of the public space.

But no, I myself haven’t heard anything as bad as you have asked. Or if he has, no one has come forward yet. So far Larry has been all talk except for the Hugo mess he started. Other than that he hasn’t pulled any JDA levels of stupid stunts or anything akin to violence.

@Richard McEnroe
As I said before, I’m happy for Larry Correia that his books and Kickstarters are doing well, that he has eager fans and a mountain in Utah. Persoanlly, I don’t much care for living in remote mountain regions, but if it makes him happy, that’s great. I just wonder why he can’t simply enjoy what he has, but has to keep on sniping at others.

@rmhartman
Yes, Larry Correia clearly doesn’t care what other people are thinking about him. Except that he obviously does, since he scrutinises every little thing someone somewhere says about him and then blows every mildly critical remark out of proportion. And for the record, no one ever said that Larry Correia was not a real gamer or a real writer or the end of writing or whatever else he has claimed over the years. He’s very much a real writer with a solid fanbase. His books aren’t to my taste at all, but then taste is subjective.

However, if someone spends years insulting and attacking other people for perceived or real slights or just because they happened to write something he disagrees with, it’s no wonder that he has aquired a reputation as something of a jerk and that plenty of people want nothing to do with him. It’s quite possible that he is lovely in person at cons – he wouldn’t be the first online jerk who turns out to be much nicer in person. But his online persona is what most people see first and that’s what puts them off. If he really doesn’t care what people think about him, he should learn to live with that.

John Ward of GAMA did not have his contract renewed. His wife’s contract was terminated.

There were a lot of problems with GAMA in the last 18 months: the invitation/disinvitation debacle with Larry; GAMA board member getting into an altercation with security at GENCON and getting his membership revoked (he apologized and took the blame within 24 hours), a serious physical sexual assault on a female at Origins (if the offender was sanctioned no announcement was ever made).

The GAMA board became dysfunctional and could not conduct ordinary business. Stackpole resigned his GAMA emeritas board position in disgust. Stackpole gave his reasons publically, which had nothing to do with Larry personally and honestly little to do with the Larry Origins invitation debacle.

I’m a gamer, run RPGs at a bunch of Cons, attend Origins annually, and have buddies who are members of GAMA. GAMA has had a bad 18 months, little of which had to do with the “Larry invitation debacle.”

Given that you came here to claim that this was the result of the LC incident, and yet admit elsewhere that it wasn’t very relevant, is there any other explanation for your actions in this thread than deliberate and cynical trolling?

Larry Correia has been called a rape apologist, abuser, homophobe without proof. I have read the comments by people that i see and have seen on this site and others.
Peolple like Mr Glyer stoke the fire and reinforce these narratives about this man without proof.

Larry Correia may be insulting but he does not cultivate a climate of hate like you and yours. Just ask his wife about calls asking about her abusive husband. These are the type of accusations that i have read here and elsewhere. WITH OUT PROOF. I love to read comments. One can learn so much. Here and his and others blogs. Information wise, this cite is interesting. I have also read much slander here which in my mind is evil. Would anyone like a screen shot.

Hey, Rickie, you need to put down the Correia Kool-Aid if PROOF is important to you. Where is some PROOF that I’ve ever written that Larry Correa is a homophobe? Because I’ve never done it.

That’s not even a word that shows up here in posts very often. The vast majority of times it has (1) occurred back in 2015, and (2) most of the instances were actually quotes from LARRY CORREIA, or Eric Flint, Amanda S. Green, L. Jagi Lamplighter, denying that one person or another was a homophobe. Which, being so worried about that kind of charge, you of all people should appreciate the signal boost.

Here’s a bunch of examples of the appearance of “homophobe” I found by running a search.

Commenters at Tor.com (6/9/15)http://file770.com/and-now-for-something-completely-distempered-69/
Excerpts from two comments at Tor.com, one applying the label to John C. Wright, the other attacking the use of the label.Larry Correia (6/11/15) http://file770.com/the-castalia-of-fu-manchihuahua-611/
As far as I’m concerned, this is between Tor and its customers. A bunch of folks have come out to condemn Tom Doherty as a misogynist for trying to protect his company, and more #standwithGallo to double down on her comments about how everybody who disagrees with them politically is a racist, sexist, homophobe. That’s awesome. You guys do far more to prove my original contention than anything I could have ever done on my own.A W Hendry (6/13/15) Word is in post title. Linked post mentions several writers, not Correiahttp://file770.com/welpendammerung-613/
“Totally No Homophobe”Andrew Hickey (6/15/15) http://file770.com/the-day-the-world-turned-pupside-down-615/
So even if the Puppies hadn’t made an actual enemy of me by including among their membership white supremacist homophobes who advocate rape and murder, I would wish them to fail purely because of their promotion of poor work and their culture war agenda.Larry Correia (6/18/15) about Peter Granthttp://file770.com/a-whippet-of-earthflea-618/
After being a soldier, Peter hung up his guns and became a man of God. SJWs are saying that he’s a homophobe because he agreed with Sad Puppies, while in real life he volunteered at a colony for homosexuals who had been forsaken by African society, dying of AIDS.N.K. Jemisin (6/22/15) about a Hugo rules change proposalhttp://file770.com/the-hound-and-the-fury-622/
So let’s review. In a year when misogynists, white supremacists, and homophobes have already managed to use the Hugos to advance their own interests, along comes this proposal making it easier for privileged white men to gain recognition, at the direct expense of the marginalized.Eric Flint (8/26/15) about John Ringohttp://file770.com/enriching-your-puppy-vocabulary-826/
And I defy anyone with a single honest bone in their body—just one; even a pinkie bone—to read his depiction of that gay couple and tell the world afterward that he’s a homophobe. Which is not to say, mind you, that John and I would agree on any number of issues that come up around the question of LGBT rights. But that’s a separate matter.Amanda S. Green (9/13/15) about Chuck Wendighttp://file770.com/pixel-scroll-912-vouching-tiger/
The key thing here is to look at the author’s behavior and how he is alienating a fan base. He has basically called all those who don’t like his work homophobes simply because they don’t like his work. That is not a way to win friends or influence people, at least not in a good way.Kevin Trainor (10/18/15) http://file770.com/pixel-scroll-1018-psycho-filer/
The Sad Puppies (and their co-belligerents, the Rabid Puppies led by Vox Day) were libeled as racists, homophobes, neo-Nazis, misogynists and pretty much every politically correct insult in the book.L. Jagi Lamplighter (9/13/16) http://file770.com/pixel-scroll-102517-blue-blue-pixels-behind-the-stars-yellow-scroll-on-the-rise/
I have been asked what the Puppies—Sad and Rabid alike—are objecting to? If they are not racist or homophobes—ie, if it is not the author’s identity that they object to—why do they think that so many of the stories that have been winning the Hugo and the Nebula are receiving their awards for the wrong reasons?
—
So Rickie – feel free to take your screen shots and shove them up your capacious ass.

Richard Ian Reynolds: Just ask his wife about calls asking about her abusive husband.

That phone call (one, singular), as Larry admitted, came from a high school friend of his wife’s, who read about Larry’s willing and enthusiastic association with Vox Day and was (in my opinion, rightfully) concerned about in what sort of behavior a man who willingly and enthusiastically associates with Vox Day would engage. The blame for that is all on Larry.

Richard Ian Reynolds: Larry Correia may be insulting but he does not cultivate a climate of hate like you and yours.

“Larry Correia has been called a rape apologist, abuser, homophobe without proof.”

I have no idea of if Correia is a homophobe. But the persons who put John C Wrights work “Transhuman and Subhuman” on the Sad Puppy 3 slate are obviously totally ok with gross homophobia. And everyone who voted for that work are homophobes.

It is totally correct to associate Sad Puppies with homophobia when they choose to promote homophobic works.